Say Yes
by Slumbering Apparitions
Summary: "I'm in love with the world through the eyes of a girl." Peeta POV. Going through and explaining Peeta's love for Katniss.


_I'm in the love with the world through the eyes of a girl_

The first time I heard her sing, I knew I was a goner. Then she managed to stumble by the bakery that one rainy night looking for food in our garbage cans. Mother was furious at the thought of Seam kids trying to get by on our crumbs when we, ourselves, could only eat the stale loafs. I purposely burnt those loaves of bread in the oven, even if it did mean I would get a slap to the face. I couldn't just let her and her family starve.

As I swept up the hot buns into my arms, ignoring how they were burning my skin, I trekked my way out to the pig pens and to the tree where she had slid down moments prior. I didn't acknowledge her whatsoever until I was done giving the pigs the pieces that she couldn't eat. I then looked at her and tossed her the buns.

They landed on her legs and she looked up at me questioning eyes. I quickly went back into the bakery before any of her questions could pass her lips. From the window I watched as she stuffed the hot loaves into her too large jacket and made her way back to her home, glancing back at the window every so often.

The next day at school I managed to catch her eye across the lawn, her face softened ever so slightly before hardening back into a mask of nothing. When her little sister Prim came skipping outside and wrapped her tiny hand around Katniss' they left and she didn't even give me a second glance.

There was something about that girl and I didn't know what it was. I knew I had always liked her, but, I'd always just assumed it was a school kid crush.

It wasn't until the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, when she volunteered for her sister, that I knew I loved her.

_I'm damaged bad at best_

After The Games ended, I knew Katniss had nightmares. I never fully experienced them until those nights on the train. I don't know how I ended up in her room, or, why in the first place; I just know I did. Although she admitted that everything that had happened during The Games was to stay alive I knew there was something in her that didn't believe that.

It started with me slowly talking her down. At first, I would lie down on the couch and we would fall asleep. Her screaming would wake me up halfway through the night and I would make my way over to the bed, gently shaking her awake. Her eyes would open and she would look at me, at first confused, wondering why I was in her room, and then, with relief. She would pull at my shirt and I would climb onto the bed and hold her, murmuring that everything was alright. Although I had my own nightmares to face, it helped every night just being able to console her.

Eventually I started sleeping in the same bed with her instead of just on the couch. When that started she would lie away from me on her side of the bed, a rigid outline in the darkness. But, in the morning when she woke up she was always in my arms, safe and sound. It progressed as the days went on, her falling asleep in my arms. One time she was the one having to awake me from my nightmares. Apparently I had been fidgeting in my sleep and I had pushed her away from me at some point.

Her exact words were, "Why didn't you tell me you were having them too?"

To which I responded, "They're always about losing you and when I wake up and realize that you're here, everything is alright."

She looked up at me through narrow eyes, her cheeks sprinkled with red. "Oh," she whispered, wrapping my arms back around her and turning around so that my front was pressed against her back.

It was that night that I mumbled a near silent, "I love you…" to a quiet room and to the girl who was already asleep.

_I'll probably be the last to know_

But, loving someone and having this somewhat perfect image of them in your mind and then having it completely distorted with Tracker Jacker venom can really take a toll on the mind. I knew she had felt something during the Quarter Quell after Finnick had told me she had completely lost it after I had hit the force field. It had made me feel hope that I would actually be able to have her for real and not just for some Capitol publicity.

Then they started injecting me the venom. Every day at the same time they would push me into a small white room filled with people who had blurs for faces and they would start the 'treatment'. When it began and they pricked me and forced me watch certain clips from the games, I would sit there and scream for hours, hopelessly trying to keep my eyes closed against their prying fingers.

That was when they decided to inject _another _drug into me, one that would calm and leave me like a vegetable, before the treatments started. That way I wouldn't be able to fight back anything that they showed me. Eventually, I guess you could say it started working. I began to question everything that she had ever done, whether it is to me or to others.

Had she been trying to kill me this whole time? What were her motives? Was she purposely trying to poison me with the Nightlock so she could win?

Slowly, as they started using more venom and more distorted clips of her, the questions and accusations began to get worse.

She was the reason all of this was happening.

I was rescued and taken back to District 13 before my blood stream was completely full of the Tracker Jacker venom. I remember vaguely trying to strangle her the first time she came to visit me, the horrified look on her face as my hands wrapped around her throat.

And then the reverse methods happened. The doctors had her come and sit in a room with me, only causing me to rage and break a vase. They had others come and see me; to try and convince me that she was not the enemy. That she wasn't the one causing this whole entire ordeal.

Memories began to be slurred together with the venom induced ones, causing me to go into fits of hysteria. As tiny things started to come back to me, I allowed myself to see her on occasion. Although I was cold and indifferent towards her, I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that she wouldn't give up on me.

_They want you or they don't; Say yes_

After everything we had gone through, we bonded together and stuck it out; through all the panic, hysteria, and anger we eventually slipped back into our old ways. I still found myself in those awful moments of doubt, when the remaining venom in my system would get the worst of me.

We'd grown accustomed to each other. We helped ease each other's pain, mine for my family, and hers for Prim. A few years had went by and everything was routine now, her waking up and falling asleep in my arms, the smell of baking bread filling the house, and the primroses growing outside by the steps.

Some days I would sit in the chair by the fireplace with my nails digging into my arm and she would come over to me and gently take my hand away and bandage any little cuts I may have caused. We would stay like that, looking out at the window that faced the woods. Silently, we began to heal one another as the days grew shorter and colder.

The marriage was a simple event in winter. It was only us and Haymitch. We did the traditional toasting and had the papers signed and everything. It wasn't until after Haymitch had left that we'd shared a kiss and had gone up with stairs to our bedroom. That night was the same as others to follow, sleeping in a warm envelope of each other.

I had decided to marry her when she had whispered into my ear, "Stay with me Peeta, don't leave me."

And I had responded back with a simple word, "Always."


End file.
